To the Editors,
After reading recent press coverage on the importance of the Nanticoke development to this election, I agree with MPP Toby Barrett’s assessment that allowing Empire Communities to build 15,000 homes for 40,000 residents out by Stelco and Esso refinery is not a good idea.
Don’t get me wrong. We desperately need new homes built. There are so many people who need a place to live. Haldimand is a great place to be. There is a growing list of people needing an affordable place to go and call home. But to build these homes right beside Stelco and the Esso refinery is wrong for a number of reasons.
First, the people who need affordable homes will not be able to afford anything that Empire Communities builds. They will not be able to pay for the mortgages. They will not be able to afford the gas to get around out there, to go shopping, to the doctors, to work – all the basic movements required to just have a normal lifestyle.
Second, putting these homes out into the Nanticoke business area is also going to create all kinds of problems for these great companies. They do all they can to keep the air pollution down. However, anybody who has gone out there to swim at the beach by Oneida Baptist Camp, or just fish in the many streams out in this area, knows if the winds blow the wrong way that a very unpleasant aroma will come from these companies.
Third, is it not time for Haldimand County to start thinking about climate change and what we can do to help to slow down the pollution created by the cars we drive? Remember 15,000 homes will mean at least 15,000 further cars. More likely that will be 30,000 vehicles. We have no mass transit anywhere in Haldimand, so the residents will need a way of getting around. There is no shopping, entertainment, or schools in Nanticoke. There are almost no amenities out in the area. Most are about an hour drive away in one direction. That would be a lot of gas used and pollution created and for what? Because there was just cheap land for Empire Communities to build their homes and maximize their profits.
Fourth, how about the congestion on these two-lane roads that 30,000 vehicles would create? The farmers have enough problems dealing with traffic now. Can Haldimand afford to build all the infrastructure needed to help move these vehicles in and around Haldimand?
Fifth, I believe that Stelco did not buy up the land around them in hopes of the companies that would move out there and would help to service their needs or use their product and create other products.
All in all I believe building 15,000 homes out in the Nanticoke area around Stelco and Esso is a great idea for Empire Communities, not a good idea for Haldimand County or the people who already live here. Building in Nanticoke makes less sense than when the Provincial Government created Townsend.
Patrick Cook,
Hagersville
